The Sport of Life: Chats w/ Comedians, Filmmakers, Sports Figures, Musicians, & Intellectuals

Actor Frank Grillo chats with Trey Elling about LAMBORGHINI: THE MAN BEHIND THE MAN BEHIND LEGEND . The film tells the wild story of Ferruccio Lamborghini, played by Frank, and what it took to create one of the most recognizable luxury sports car brands on the planet. Topics include: Whether Frank broke his disciplined diet white shooting on location in Italy (1:11) How Frank pulled off the Italia...

Award-winning writer David Sax chats with Trey Elling about THE FUTURE IS ANALOG: HOW TO CREATE A MORE HUMAN WORLD . Topics include: How the pandemic exposed the flaws of going too digital (0:22) The value of working at an office with your coworkers (3:28) The false promises of technology evolving education (18:45) What schools could learn from kindergarten (26:42) The initial vision of e-commerce...

Two-time UFC strawweight champion Rose Namajunas and her trainer & fiancé Pat Barry chat with Trey Elling about THUG ROSE: MIXED MARTIAL ARTIST from the red carpet, prior to its world premiere at the Austin Film Festival. The film documents the highs and lows from Rose's life and career. Pat Barry (0:00) Rose Namajunas (3:37)

Rose Namajunas and Marius Markevicius chat with Trey Elling about THUG ROSE: MIXED MARTIAL ARTIST. The documentary about Namajunas' life and career, directed by Markevicius, premieres on November 9th on UFC Fight Pass .

James Beard- and Emmy-winning chef, tv personality, and author Jacques Pépin chats with Trey Elling about ART OF THE CHICKEN: A MASTER CHEF'S PAINTINGS, STORIES, AND RECIPES OF THE HUMBLE BIRD . Topics include: What he loves about chickens (1:32) Giving recipes in a narrative style (3:05) Cooking over live fire (5:28) Working at Hôtel Plaza Athénée, Paris (6:29) Moving from France to NYC in 1959 (...

Joe Maddon, a longtime MLB manager who led the Tampa Bay Rays to their first ever World Series appearance and the Chicago Cubs to their first World Series title in more than 100 years, chats with Trey Elling about THE BOOK OF JOE: TRYING NOT TO SUCK AT BASEBALL AND LIFE . Topics include: The book's goal (2:14) Slogans helping to get a message across (4:08) A football coach who shaped his leadershi...

European history and nuclear arms policy expert Benjamin Abelow chats with Trey Elling about HOW THE WEST BROUGHT WAR TO UKRAINE: UNDERSTANDING HOW U.S. AND NATO POLICIES LED TO CRISIS, WAR, AND THE RISK OF NUCLEAR CATASTROPHE . Topics include: NATO's expansion east over the past 30 years (0:35) Why NATO would've promised not to expand east in the early 1990s (2:46) NATO adding Poland is a member...

Award-winning television producer and documentary filmmaker Natasha Lance Rogoff chats with Trey Elling about MUPPETS IN MOSCOW: THE UNEXPECTED CRAZY TRUE STORY OF MAKING SESAME STREET IN RUSSIA . Topics include: Why Sesame Street asked her to bring the show to Russia (2:00) Starting with getting past Russia's gatekeepers (8:29) Finally finding Russian financing (14:42) The difficulty of convincin...

George Mason University Professor of Economics and New York Times bestselling author Bryan Caplan chats with Trey Elling about DON'T BE A FEMINIST: ESSAYS ON GENUINE JUSTICE . Topics include: Feminism (0:22) Orwellian 'othering' (13:49) Public school classes are too touchy-feely (18:41) Happiness (22:39)

Decision-making expert, bestselling author, and former professional poker player Annie Duke chats with Trey Elling about QUIT: THE POWER OF KNOWING WHEN TO WALK AWAY . Topics include: Why we have have a hard time quitting (2:17) Richard Pryor (5:26) Why NYC cabbies in the 1990s were bad quitters (8:17) The difficulty of quitting in the red (13:03) California's high speed train money pit (16:22) Mo...

Comedian John Crist chats with Trey Elling about DELETE THAT (AND OTHER FAILED ATTEMPTS TO LOOK GOOD ONLINE) . Topics include: Writing a memoir at 38 (:31) John's unique childhood (2:20) Failure (6:58) Early affirmations from a comic who had 'made it' (10:47) Louie Anderson's generous offer (13:51) Getting over a fear of discussing his spirituality on stage (17:00) Mocking both sides of a topic (2...

Renowned child psychologist and author Susan Linn chats with Trey Elling about WHO'S RAISING THE KIDS: BIG TECH, BIG BUSINESS, AND THE LIVES OF KIDS . Topics include: How a commercialized, digitized society affects kids' brain development (3:45) Nurturing 'awe' in children (6:14) Mr. Rogers encouraging silence (14:12) Mattel trying to hook babies with Aristotle (19:03) Screens substituting for rea...

Bestselling author Meg Gardiner chats with Trey Elling about HEAT 2 . Gardiner co-authored the book with Michael Mann, which serves as the sequel to Mann's 1995 crime thriller HEAT, starring Al Pacino, Robert Deniro, and Val Kilmer. Topics include: How she and Mann linked up (0:35) Where the book picks up from the film (6:48) Writing dialogue for characters that already exist on the big screen (13...

Randall Balmer, an Episcopal priest and John Phillips Chair in Religion at Dartmouth College, chats with Trey Elling about PASSION PLAYS: HOW RELIGION SHAPED SPORTS IN NORTH AMERICA . Topics include: Baseball as counterculture to the Industrial Revolution (2:32) Football benefitting from the US Civil War (17:08) Hockey as a metaphor for Canada (28:24) Basketball's similarities to American urbaniza...

Louise Willder, a copywriter at Penguin Books whose written around 5,000 blurbs over nearly three decades, chats with Trey Elling about BLURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM: AN A-Z OF LITERARY PERSUASION . Topics include: Defining “blurb” (0:29) The profession of “blurbing” (3:09) Adjectives begetting laziness (7:10) Subtitles (10:24) Why some authors despise blurbs (14:10) Do authors ever write their own blurbs...

Jim DiEugenio, a foremost expert on the assassination of John F. Kennedy, chats with Trey Elling about JFK REVISITED: THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS . The book provides annotated transcripts of Oliver Stone's recent two- and four-hour documentaries, co-written by Jim, that present the most recent evidence uncovered by the Assassinations Record Review Board (ARRB). Topics include: The ARRB's importance...

Journalist and author Henry Sanderson chats with Trey Elling about VOLT RUSH: THE WINNERS AND LOSERS IN THE RACE TO GO GREEN . Topics include: Why electric vehicles didn't catch on initially in the early 1900s (2:01) How Exxon gets partial credit for discovering the lithium battery (4:37) China as the world's 'battery superpower' (7:54) Lithium's path from ground to battery (11:40) Cobalt's path f...

Portland-based writer and author Kristin Ohlson chats with Trey Elling about SWEET IN TOOTH AND CLAW: STORIES OF GENEROSITY AND COOPERATION IN THE NATURAL WORLD . Topics include: Harvesting trees while keeping a forest healthy (1:14) Dead salmon's contribution to the forest network (5:17) Bees sometimes cheating mutualism with pollenating flowers (7:03) Relaxed selection versus natural selection (...

Spy. Spook. Intelligence officer. However you label him, Douglas London spent 34 years with the CIA, working as a field operative in countries outside of the United States, establishing relationships with foreign nationals who could help the US with highly sensitive information. And he's sharing his story with Trey Elling as told in THE RECRUITER: SPYING AND THE LOST ART OF AMERICAN INTELLIGENCE ....

Legendary actor Anthony Michael Hall chats with Trey Elling about his new film THE CLASS . Topics include: THE CLASS as a sort of spiritual sequel to THE BREAKFAST CLUB (0:38) Taking a page from John Hughes with rehearsals (5:00) Playing a school administrator, and remembering Paul Gleeson (8:53) Humanizing the authority figures (13:17) Acting class memories (14:59)

Evan Puschak, the guy responsible for the wildly popular The Nerdwriter channel on YouTube , chats with Trey Elling about ESCAPE INTO MEANING: ESSAYS ON SUPERMAN, PUBLIC BENCHES, AND OTHER OBSESSIONS . Topics include: Coming into his own as a writer (1:46) Lessons learned from Emerson (6:35) Articulating like Jerry Seinfeld (10:03) The brilliance of standup comedy (12:43) Facebook's true customers...

Philly-based standup David James chats with Trey Elling, a head of his shows at Cap City Comedy Club from Sept. 2nd - 4th . Topics include: Getting fired from a paper company (0:25) Working as a parole officer (2:35) His standup journey (4:33) Tik Tok standup "comedians" (5:57) Remembering the Alamo while murdering Bills fans in Buffalo (7:36) David's terrible NYE in San Antonio (13:29) What he ha...

Trey takes a break from interviews to discuss his recent departure from 104.9 The Horn, a sports radio station in Austin, TX where he hosted a midday show for the past five-plus years.

Journalist, screenwriter, and New York Times bestselling author TJ English chats with Trey Elling about DANGEROUS RHYTHMS: JAZZ AND THE UNDERWORLD . In the second of a two-part conversation with TJ, topics include: Jazz thriving through the Great Depression (0:15) How gangsters "mobbed up" jukeboxes during the Great Depression (2:40) Frank Sinatra as the main figure in the book's second half (4:40...

Journalist, screenwriter, and New York Times bestselling author TJ English chats with Trey Elling about DANGEROUS RHYTHMS: JAZZ AND THE UNDERWORLD . In the first of a two-part conversation with TJ, topics include: Why the birth of jazz was about more than merely creating a new sort of language (3:10) How lynchings helped form a bond Sicilian club owners and black jazz musicians in early-1900s New...